Always an outsider?
JC
The Pasadena Weekly’s theme this week is “Blurring the Color Lines” — it featured a cover story on a mixed family and included some other pieces that revolved around mixed identity. Check out Jon Lewis-Katz’s article about growing up mixed. He talks about the common experience of people constantly questioning whether he belonged to his mother as a youngster. He also talks about the phenomenon of blending in and showing the chameleon-like tendencies that so many of us ambiguous looking people have.
I’d become racially ambiguous. In airports I was, unfortunately, Middle Eastern. In the Italian section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I was Italian. In job interviews, after potential employers saw my last name, I was Jewish. In Spanish-owned delis, Puerto Rican. “Tres dòlares,” the woman at the register would say to me. Of course, this change came with its own burden. No longer racially fixed, people based assumptions about me on the clothes I wore, the people I walked with, the neighborhood I walked in. Still, because few people were sure what I was, I was rarely faced with overtly racist comments.
Not sure that I feel comfortable with his concluding thought…
Gradually, between October and February, I realized that in all my attempts to wrestle down a racial identity, I’d learned that to be racially mixed is to be made up of a contradiction: your mom’s race, your dad’s race and, therefore, neither his nor hers. This is different than to repeat that line about race labels being false, to say that the labels “white” and “black” are theoretical. What feels real is real. It is to say that I will never be completely black. I will never be completely white. I may be West Indian, I may be Jewish, but, racially, I am forever an outsider. It is my place.
Forever an outsider? Obviously in many ways, mixed race identity is not assumed to be a real identity or an identity in and of itself, and so I can understand the author’s feelings of being an outsider…but it just reads a bit melodramatic to me. Come on, as we all know, mixed race people are growing in numbers…what I am getting at is…the more of us there are, the less we are apt to feel like outsiders.
And another point. In order to be an outsider, you have to accept that there are these fixed communities of “purely monoracial” people that don’t leave room for difference. But why do we need to seek approval anyway? Do we need some kind of password and special card to gain entrance into our communities? We are who we are and we honestly don’t need anyone’s approval of that. Be in the communities you want to be in. If it doesn’t feel right, build your own community! We need to challenge the notions of “insider” and “outsider.” No one should be able to deem you an outsider merely based on your ethnicity (or more specifically, the fact that you are made up of more than one). And if you feel like an outsider, ask yourself why. Don’t buy into the idea that communities have walls and criteria for membership. While this is still definitely implied, felt, and still carried out by some, why accept it?!
I am no longer willing to go along with this, but I will admit that I definitely used to subscribe to this notion. I felt rejected because I myself believed that I didn’t have the necessary characteristics to fit into the Asian community or the Jewish community. And others confirmed that for me (and when they didn’t, my nervousness around not fitting in tainted my perceptions and I thought that I was being rejected 100% of the time even though I may not have been in each circumstance). My thinking has changed — and that of my communities? Maybe not. 
But the fact that mine has is the most important. I no longer assume that people will shut me out…and honestly, that feels like the healthier way to be. You go where you want to go, and assert your right to be a part of the communities that are yours. The worst that can happen is that people kick you out — the best? You change people’s minds about what the community could look like if it was truly inclusive.
Francis Ebua Jacquerye wrote:
Hey, I can actually relate to that “chameleon” thing. My mother is from central Africa and my father from North-Western Europe. Five years ago I moved from Belgium to Milan, Italy. In the last two decades, Italy’s economic capital has become increasingly cosmopolitan, with many immigrants from Northern Africa, Central and South America.
Many Brazilians approach me with Portuguese, thinking I must be one of their compatriots. Bolivians, Peruvians and Ecuadorians do approach me with Spanish, and I have been told that I also look Puertorican and Cuban. Sometimes, Italian waiters reply to my questions in English because they assume that I am African-American. Northern Africans do approach me with Arabic. At first I didn’t know how to react but now I reply to and Arabic question in Dutch, a language I learned in school and which is only spoken in two tiny European countries. It is so funny to see their puzzled face as they try to make sense of the awkward sounds that come out of my mouth.
People just make assumptions based on their limited experience of the World. Like Jon Lewis-Katz, if feel like an outsider, but in a good sense. I am an outsider to people who are limited by their shallow cultural mindset. I am free to move beyond that and to easily adapt to new cultural environments because my roots and my upbringing have accustomed me to juggle with more than one culture.
Posted 09 Mar 2006 at 5:17 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Hunh.
I’m sorry, but “I am an outsider forever in my place” smacks of some kind of caste thing… if you embrace being an outsider for the POV you gain, that’s great (actually, that’s my life, and not just due to race). But if you feel stuck with it, then you ARE the tragic mulatto.
Posted 09 Mar 2006 at 8:52 am ¶
Cheneep wrote:
I agree we shouldn’t be seeking and worse begging for other peoples approval. We can’t EVER please everyone. Right too our group is gettin bigger all the time. Check Mariah, I’m sure most of her problems stem from her trying to belong where her colour and looks are obviously a bar. Girl still trying hard though. ‘Bout time we STOP being self-impose victims by trying to convince others we “belong” to them.
Posted 09 Mar 2006 at 10:02 am ¶
Merq wrote:
Oddly enough, I believe Carey is one of the great examples of self-definition done right. She says (paraphrased), “I’m biracial, but I see myself as culturally black. Am I white? No. You ask why? It’s called a one-drop rule.”
She’s embraced by a good number of blacks (although I heard Essence magazine received a barrage of angry letters from black women for putting her on the cover… whatever), and doesn’t try to be “street.” She doesn’t try nearly as hard to be “hip-hop” as, say, Fergie or Gwen Stefani.
She seems fairly comfortable in her own skin, light as it may be.
So yeah, she gets my award for self-definition.
Posted 09 Mar 2006 at 12:31 pm ¶
Mary wrote:
On a human level I can identify with all people, but when it comes to culture and politics I identify with African-Americans though my father is Hispanic (his family if from Puerton Rico). I identify as such because I was raised by my mother who is African-American, thus culturally that is all I know. My father had no impact on my life whatsoever. I don’t speak Spanish, I don’t eat Puerto Rican food…in short Puerto Rican culture is as foreign to me as Chinese culture, Russian culture, East Indian culture etc…In this world you have to figure out where you belong. There is a difference between “being mixed” in regards to ancestry and identifying with a particular culture because of upbringing. I acknowledge both ancestries when people ask me that question: what are you? But I identify with African-American culture and people. Perhaps if my parents had not divorced and/or my father had acted like a man and taken as active interest in my life I would be “on the fence” too. And then again, maybe I wouldn’t. Either way, I’m gald I’m not on the fense, that I didn’t have the identity issues some mixed persons have. You know, you don’t HAVE to be marginalized if you don’t want too.
Posted 09 Mar 2006 at 3:58 pm ¶
Powna wrote:
Mary
You have the right to define your own identity which is great that you seem to feel comfortable with who you are.
But please Please stop while you are ahead
“You know, you don’t HAVE to be marginalized if you don’t want too. ”
what the…
ok vent over… That type of statement just goads me.
Posted 13 Mar 2006 at 10:49 am ¶
Mary wrote:
Powna,
I really don’t understand why you are so irked by my comments…I didn’t mean any offense, my only point was that regardless of one’e ethnic background you can find a community and/or people who are willing to accept you as a human being. You don’t have to compromise your idenity in order to “fit in.” I have been rejected by all types of people for various reasons…not just because of my ethnic background. I have been rejected by some African-Americans for not being “black enough,” I have been rejected by some Puerto Rican for not speaking Spanish, of all things. I have been rejected by Republicans for being a Democrat…Athists for being a Christian. Hell I have even been rejected by members of my own family for attending a “prestigous” University and playing the violin! Yet in spite of those experiences, I have managed to find acceptance by those persons who have values simliar to my own. As someone above mentioned, if you can’t find a community that accepts you, then create your own. You don’t have to be an outsider, you don’t have to be on the fringes. In my experience, the reason why some mixed raced persons feel like outsiders, is because they tend to overly racialize things. This is not to undermine the real discrimination biracials experience from people belonging to both sides of their ancestry. Believe me, I have been there. But I choose not to be so hypersensitive to my ethnic background to assume that I can’t find fellowship with other human beings just
because they are not of my same ethnic background. Sorry if you were offended by my last post. That was not my intent. I certainly didn’t mean to dismiss the real social struggles many bi/multiracials feel. However, such a circumstance was not my reality, or perhaps I
should say that I did not allow such struggles to overwhelm me and render me a permanent social outcast.
Posted 14 Mar 2006 at 2:53 pm ¶
Powna wrote:
The reason why that type of comment does tend to get me quite irritated is that I have heard it used to excuse discrimination in various forms and put the blame on the victim.
Now I realize that was not your intent. In reading your next post, I can understand your point better. I do agree that one should strive not be hypersenstive about racial issues. (someone might just not like you:D not your race perceived or self-identified).
Posted 15 Mar 2006 at 1:21 pm ¶
Mary wrote:
I’m glad I made things clearer. Reading over my first post I can see why my comments might have offended you and others. I think I worte my first post in haste.
Posted 15 Mar 2006 at 5:19 pm ¶
JLK wrote:
Hi y’all. I’m Jon Lewis-Katz, the guy who wrote the article that sparked this discussion. First, I want to say that unless you publish you don’t know how nice it is to see people talking about your work. Even if they’re critisizing you. So much love, even to those who may not like my message. Below I’ve posted part of my response to, well, you all’s response. The whole thing, along with other stories I’ve written, is available on my myspace blog (www.myspace.com/toothpickthick).
“A lot of people had an issue with the last two lines of the story, which read, “I may be West Indian, I may be Jewish, but, racially, I’m forever an outsider. It is my place.” One person said he/she doesn’t feel comfortable with that line. Neither do I. That’s why I wrote the essay.
Others were bothered because they believe that, though multi-racial people are often miscategorized or rejected, they shouldn’t submit to other people’s notions about race. I understand this argument. But it doesn’t address the fact that we’re affected by people’s attitudes towards us. If we weren’t, the Civil Rights Movement wouldn’t have been necessary. That’s an extreme example. How about: if we weren’t, the discussion boards for multi-racial people on which this criticism was posted wouldn’t exist.
Also, it’s important to realize that every individual’s experience is different. When we talk about multi-racial people, experiences vary depending on how the person looks compared to his/her parents, how close the person is to each parent and his/her culture, etc. In my case, my experience was affected by the personal circumstances of my parents’ divorce, which I decided not to discuss in the essay.
Ultimately, my point in those last two lines was to suggest that people should begin to be identified/identify others by their cultural heritage instead of their racial background. This point was largely overlooked on the discussion boards. But I believe it benefits everyone. Racial categories, after all, are much more artificial than cultural boundaries. Cultural distinctions rely on food, music, language, etc. instead of just skin color, which, as multi-racial people know, can be deceptive.”
Posted 28 Mar 2006 at 12:02 am ¶
Cheneep wrote:
I must admit, I thought Mary had a some kinda glitch, but when I read her reply I though, yes THAT’s what I understand. Sometimes because of the experiences that we have, we tend to fire off things that we really didn’t mean, or explanations just sound worse because we have so much to just off load. I’ve been there. I think it was really cool the way Mary and Powna responded to criticisim in a constructive way that I found personally helpful….thanks.
As for you Mr. Katz, I went to school with many West Indian etnic Jews, so you feeling like an outsider seems strange to me. I could only think you grew up in the US. My best friend was West Indian Jewish like you. For me you’re NO OUTSIDER. as of Now, REMOVE that tag, brother you’re the REAL THING!!! Love to ALL of you!
Posted 29 Mar 2006 at 11:04 am ¶